“This is our first trip to Colorado (for this campaign),” he said. “I like this state a lot. I am not surprised that a candidate like me who stands up for the basic family values gets a reception like this. This is an important state, it is a swing state and an important state in the election.”

Santorum urged the 250 people gathered in the lounge to “change up the race.”Read more…

Joe Coors Jr., who announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination in the 7th Congressional District, says the pledge today along with supporters Linda Tafoya and Rick Enstrom, a candidate for the state House.

Republican Joe Coors Jr. woke up today to find his neighborhood lined with campaign signs for Congressman Ed Perlmutter, the Democrat he hopes to unseat in Congress.

Colorado House Speaker Frank McNulty said today the House is empaneling a special ethics committee to look into the Jan. 25 traffic stop that has caused a storm of publicity around Rep. Laura Bradford.

A statement from House Republicans said the committee’s purpose is “to investigate whether Bradford was driving under the influence of alcohol and whether she invoked legislative privilege against arrest.”

Bradford, R-Collbran, was stopped last week at about 10 p.m. in the Capitol Hill area on Colfax. Officers suspected her of being intoxicated but later let her leave the scene in a taxi, saying she invoked legislative immunity from being arrested.

However, in a press conference this afternoon, Denver Police retracted that statement and apologized to Bradford, saying she asked to be treated like anyone else.

“From our standpoint, we still recognize the seriousness of the situation,” McNulty said. “We appreciate the fact that the Denver Police Department has been forthcoming on this question.

“We will continue to pursue this with the recognition of how important it is.”

The ethics panel will be headed by Rep. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs, with Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, as vice chairwoman. The meeting schedule has not been set yet.

Even with Gov. John Hickenlooper selling it in person, a proposal to privatize Pinnacol Assurance – the state-chartered worker’s compensation insurance fund – got a cool reception today from a special panel looking at the deal.

The Pinnacol Assurance Stakeholders Task Force didn’t take an official vote on the proposal, but a straw poll of the panel members present, a group representing business associations, labor unions, non-profits and civic leaders, showed more than half to be either opposed or neutral. And many of those on the panel of two dozen members qualified their neutral stance with serious concerns about the proposal.

Hickenlooper, a Democrat, has been pushing hard on the privatization deal, which would turn Pinnacol, now a quasi-governmental entity that is a poltical subdivision of the state, into a mutual assurance company with the option to become a common stock company.

The original proposal from Pinnacol called for the state to receive an ownership stake worth 40 percent, with a $340 million face value, of what would be the new mutual assurance company.

The initial deal would pay the state $13.6 million a year in dividends, money that could be used for college scholarships and economic development.

Hickenlooper is now recommending the state’s share be increased to $350 million and that a $22 million injured-workers fund be created. That fund would be paid over 20 years with annual payments of $1.1 million.

WASHINGTON — Nine Coloradans from Denver, Carbondale, Cherry Hills and Boulder gave more than $200 to comedian Stephen Colbert’s satirical “super PAC”, according to campaign filings released Tuesday.

Colbert’s super PAC, called Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, raised $1 million in 2011. Coloradans who listed professions as engineers, sales, and banking gave $2,531.49 collectively. In Colorado, the highest donor, Douglas Beekman from Denver, gave $500. Most other contributions were $250 or $300. Donors who give less than $200 do not have to be reported.

None of the Colorado names listed appear to be satirical, though Colbert told fans yesterday that some of the contributor names listed on the filings were clearly not real names.

Colbert has been protesting the wild west nature of campaign finance after a U.S. Supreme Court decision two years ago that allows corportations, unions and individuals to give unlimited amounts of money to groups that oppose or support candidates. Colbert has spoke out against this both on his show and in a testimony to the Federal Election Commission last summer. In his cover letter to the FEC, he said “I’m rolling seven digits deep.”

Political Action Committees are supposed to report campaign contribution filings by midnight tonight. So-called “Super PACs” have proliferated in the past two years since the January 2010 “Citizens United” decision. It is illegal for Super PACS to coordinate with individual campaigns.

Former Republican Sen. Wayne Allard now lobbies for the American Motorcyclist Association. He is pictured here with his wife, Joan, at a Colorado State University alumni event Monday in Washington.

WASHINGTON — Former Sen. Wayne Allard has taken a job at the American Motorcyclist Association as a lobbyist — a job he says keeps him busy as the Senate takes up an overhaul of transportation funding.

Allard still has a house in Loveland but now lives with his wife, Joan, in Virginia.

Allard, a trained veterinarian, started at the Association in the fall, he told The Denver Post Monday night.

Of interest to the Association is the six-year bill to reauthorize federal surface transportation programs, which the Senate is taking up now. The spending bill provides $339.2 billion over six years.

Also, Allard says he monitors wilderness and environment bills to ensure his people get access to picturesque back country roads. He also watches highway safety legislation, since motorcyclists are more at risk of death and injury in auto crashes, he said.

“It’s been fun,” he said.

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WASHINGTON — GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said he would like to create a moon colony “by the end of his second term in office” where 13,000 people could live.

(If he won this year and again in 2016, he would leave the White House in 2020.)

In a Washington Post story today, University of Colorado at Boulder astrophysist Jack O. Burns called that highly unlikely.

Actually, he laughed and said “that’s not going to be true.”

Burns may know what he’s talking about. Besides being an astrophysicist, he also directs the NASA Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research. (To see Jack Burns’ webpage, click here.)

For all those lunar dreamers out there, Burns says by 2020 it would be possible to sustain a colony with “a dozen folks who were there and doing scientific research, engineering, planning, building roads.”

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.